I've always loved stories.
Not just reading them. Creating them.
If you leave me alone with a notebook and a good idea, there's a very real chance I'll lose track of time completely and reappear a few hours later with three new characters, an unexpected plot twist, and absolutely no memory of why I walked into the room in the first place.
There's something magical about taking an idea that exists only in your imagination and turning it into something real. To me, a blank page has never felt empty.
It has always felt like possibility.
A place where an idea becomes a story.
Where a memory becomes something worth holding onto.
Where a child becomes the hero.
And where words can say the things our hearts sometimes struggle to express.
Writing has been part of who I am for as long as I can remember. Looking back, I think the experiences I've lived through were quietly teaching me how to tell stories that matter.
I've also come to realize that I've been a survivor for almost my entire life.
When I was just 15 months old, I nearly died from an accidental overdose. I was far too young to remember it, but that moment became the first chapter in a lifelong story of surviving things I was never expected to face.
In many ways, I've been fighting for my life ever since.
Not always physically.
Sometimes emotionally.
Sometimes mentally.
Sometimes simply finding the strength to keep moving forward when life felt impossibly heavy.
Survival became something I learned early.
And resilience became part of who I am.
I HAVE NEVER BEEN VERY GOOD AT QUITTING
Life has knocked me down more than once.
I've known loss, heartbreak, and the kind of pain that changes you. I've had to say goodbye to people I loved, watch dreams shift, and learn how to keep moving forward when I wasn't entirely sure what "forward" was supposed to look like anymore.
And then there was losing my leg.
That definitely wasn't on my vision board.
If you'd shown me that chapter ahead of time, I probably would have handed it back and said, "Let's workshop this storyline a little."
But life doesn't usually ask for editorial approval.
I joke about it sometimes because humor has always been one of my survival skills.
And honestly, if life is going to hand me something that dramatic, I'm at least going to get a few good jokes out of it.
But beneath the humor is a truth I've learned firsthand.
Losing a part of yourself changes you.
It changes how you move through the world, how you see yourself, and sometimes who you believe you are.
There were days when I felt completely lost.
Then one day I realized something important.
I hadn't disappeared.
I was still here.
Still me.
Maybe not the same version of myself I'd always known, but someone new. Someone still growing, still learning, still becoming.
And maybe that wasn't something to fear.
Maybe it was something to discover.
I AM MADE OF A LOT OF PIECES
I don't believe any of us become who we are because of one defining moment.
We're shaped by the people we've loved and lost, the memories we cherish, the mistakes we've made, and the moments that both broke and saved us.
Every experience becomes a link in the chain of who we are.
Some links are beautiful.
Some are painful.
Some need repair.
But every one of them matters.
When you look back across your life, you realize that even the chapters you never would have chosen helped shape the person you've become.
That's one of the reasons chainmail speaks to me so deeply.
A single ring doesn't seem like much.
But link it to another.
And another.
And another.
Eventually, those small pieces become something strong, something whole, and something beautiful.
I think people are like that too.
I know I am.
I STILL BELIEVE IN BEGINNINGS
After everything I've experienced, I still believe in beginnings.
Not because starting over is easy.
It isn't.
Sometimes starting over means letting go of the life you expected, learning to live differently, and grieving the person you thought you'd always be.
Eventually, you're left asking yourself:
"What can I create from here?"
I've asked myself that question more than once.
I don't always have the answer.
But I've learned that you don't need to see the entire path before taking the next step.
Sometimes that step is small.
Sometimes it's simply making it through the day.
Sometimes it's allowing yourself to dream again.
And sometimes it's drinking coffee and pretending you have a plan until an actual plan shows up.
I've discovered that's a surprisingly effective strategy.
The truth is, starting over doesn't mean starting with nothing.
You carry everything you've learned, survived, loved, and become into whatever comes next.
THEN THERE IS WRITING
Writing gives me a place for all of it.
The memories.
The emotions.
The imagination.
The laughter.
The grief.
The things I don't always know how to say out loud.
I love creating characters, worlds, and adventures.
The characters are usually much better at listening than real people.
They almost never interrupt me halfway through a brilliant idea.
Of course, the downside is that fictional people occasionally occupy more space in my brain than my grocery list, which explains a lot.
But what I love most is knowing that a story might become meaningful to someone else.
A child might see themselves in its pages.
A parent might create a memory with their child.
A family might hold onto it for years and remember exactly where it came from.
That means something to me.
Because I know how precious memories are.
And I know how quickly life can change.
I DON'T JUST WRITE STORIES
I think I write because I understand what it feels like to need a story.
Sometimes we need one to make us laugh.
Sometimes we need one to give us hope.
Sometimes we need one to remind us that hard things can be overcome.
And sometimes we simply need an escape.
I've needed all of those things myself.
Maybe that's why I want to create them for others.
I want children to imagine themselves as heroes.
I want families to preserve moments that may someday become treasured memories.
I want readers to laugh, cry, dream, and carry something meaningful with them long after they've turned the final page.
Because stories have a way of staying with us.
And sometimes they help us become who we're meant to be.
THIS JOURNEY MEANS SOMETHING TO ME
One of the things I'm most grateful for in this chapter of my life is that I get to share it with my husband.
White Creativity Vault™ is something we've built together, and that makes it incredibly meaningful to me.
It carries pieces of both of us.
His creativity.
My writing.
His craftsmanship.
My imagination.
And my tendency to say, "You know what we should do?
Which is usually the beginning of another project.
There's something special about building a life with the person you love. We make a great team!
Not just building a business.
Building memories.
Building a future.
Building something that becomes part of your family's story.
The rest of that story is on Our Story page.
But I will say this:
I love the life we're creating together.
I AM STILL BECOMING
I don't have everything figured out.
I know.
Shocking.
I was disappointed too.
There are still days when I feel overwhelmed.
There are still things I'm learning.
Some of them repeatedly, because apparently I'm a hands-on learner and life is fully committed to the curriculum.
But I've stopped believing I need all the answers before I'm allowed to begin.
I've learned to give myself permission to learn, change, fail, start over, and keep growing.
And after everything I've been through, I think that's one of the greatest gifts I've ever given myself.
Permission to keep becoming.
SO, THIS IS ME
I am a writer.
A creator.
A storyteller.
A wife.
A mother.
A GiGi.
I was once a single mom raising two incredible girls, Autumn and Averi, and being their mother remains one of the greatest blessings of my life.
I didn't always know exactly what I was doing.
Truthfully, I suspect most parents are just making their best guess and hoping the children don't figure that out until they're adults.
Thankfully, mine turned out wonderfully.
I watched them grow into remarkable women, and I couldn't be prouder of them.
Then came another role I never knew I would love quite so much.
Being a GiGi.
Nobody properly warns you about grandchildren.
One day you're enforcing rules.
The next you're handing out extra snacks, bending rules you once enforced, and calling it "making memories."
They have brought so much joy, laughter, imagination, and wonder into my life.
They remind me that the world still looks magical when you slow down enough to see it through a child's eyes.
They're a big part of why creating children's stories means so much to me.
Because I don't see children as people waiting to become someone.
I see them as people already carrying entire worlds inside their imaginations.
And I want to help give those worlds a place to go.
I am a woman who has known incredible love and profound loss.
A woman who has rebuilt pieces of herself more than once.
A woman who has learned that grief and laughter can live in the same heart.
A woman who has survived far more than she ever expected to.
A woman who still believes in beautiful things.
Who still dreams.
Who still gets excited when an idea suddenly clicks into place.
Who can look at a blank page and see an entire world waiting to be written.
And yes, I'm also the woman who lost a leg and decided that was absolutely not going to be the most interesting thing about me.
It's certainly memorable.
But if that's the headline of my life story, then somebody skipped several chapters.
Because it's only one part of my story.
It isn't the whole story.
My story is still being written.
And that's what I love most.
There are still pages to fill.
Stories to tell.
Ideas to create.
Memories to make.
And chapters I haven't imagined yet.
Every experience, every love, every loss, every dream, and every lesson has helped bring me here.
To this woman.
To this life.
To these children and grandchildren I love.
To the man I love.
To this journey.
And to White Creativity Vault™.
I don't know exactly where the story goes from here.
But for the first time in a long time, I'm not afraid of the blank pages.
I'm excited to fill them.
Preferably with great stories, wonderful memories, and significantly fewer plot twists than life has given me so far.
Because I've learned something I believe with my whole heart:
You don't have to know how your story ends to be excited about what comes next.
Sometimes you simply have to pick up the pen.
And begin.
WHITE CREATIVITY VAULT™
Where Ideas Become Creations™